Dance Art Group Spring Workshops

Workshops with local teachers and a super-size jam to benefit DAG!

With Nate Dryden | Lila Hurwitz | Cyrus Khambatta | Stephanie Skura

Velocity Dance Center | 1621 12th Avenue | Seattle

Only $100!: All Workshops & Jam
$30: One Workshop; $5 off each additional workshop
$5-15: Jam

Info/Registration: info (at ) danceartgroup.org; 206.686.7323; Dance Art Group

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FRIDAY, MAY 7 | 6-9pm
Upside Down & Backwards: Partnering With All Sides | Cyrus Khambatta

Created with Contact Improvisation practitioners in mind, this workshop will be about exploring upside down and backwards in confidence. A malleable 360 degree use of the spine enables increased ease of pathways through the back/side/frontspace while partnering. This "molding" use of the spine helps navigate options in dealing with gravity in relationship to friction and creates a better intuitive understanding of how to use a partners' architecture as an extension of one's own. By slowing down the process of falling it provides more time to respond and react and more physical confidence in partnering.

Cyrus Khambatta is the Artistic Director of Khambatta Dance Company (formerly Phffft! Co.), fusing contemporary dance and Contact Improvisation. His work has been presented in 12 US states, throughout Europe, in Russia and Latin America. In 2003 he received California's Daman New Choreography Award, and will be teaching this summer at the Freiburg Festival in Germany, in Latvia, Lithuania and France.

SATURDAY, MAY 8 | 10am-1pm
Breath, Suspension & Dynamic Movement with Skinner Releasing Technique™

Through the practice of Skinner Releasing Technique, dancers will explore awareness of suspension and breath in ways that catalyze greater freedom of movement and shifting dynamics, while supporting and sustaining the physical self. Improvisational movement studies with guided imagery engage the participant's creative process and technical skill learning abilities.

Nathan Dryden is an independent choreographer, performer, director, aerialist and teacher from Seattle whose work crosses through dance, improvisation, aerial dance, Contact Improvisation and movement theatre. In 2001 Nathan became a certified instructor of the Skinner Releasing Technique, serving as faculty at the annual Skinner Releasing Institute's summer program in Seattle and teaching in festivals and universities across the USA, Mexico, Ecuador, Turkey, New Zealand, Australia and the UK.

SATURDAY, MAY 8 | 2-5pm
The Athletic Voice | Stephanie Skura

Tools to find courage, freedom and specificity. To open the voice -- literally AND figuratively. To trust our inner world as a resource. To find physical manifestations of our ideas in body and voice. Bring paper, pen and drawing materials.

A radical and perpetual innovator, Stephanie Skura received one of the inaugural New York "Bessie" Awards for Choreographic Achievement. She creates with an abiding interest in interdisciplinary process, individual creative empowerment, and a current focus on imagistic language and the athletic voice. She has taught and performed throughout the USA and Europe. She directs a teacher training program called Open Source Forms.

SUNDAY, MAY 9 | 10am-1pm
Feldenkrais® & Friends | Lila Hurwitz

The Feldenkrais Method is a subtle and powerful system of neuromuscular re-education that evokes changes in muscular tone, flexibility, coordination, attention, and the comfort and efficiency of movement. We'll explore using Feldenkrais as a warm-up into an array of fabulous improvisational and perceptual practices including Authentic Movement, Contemplative Dance Practice, and the Tuning Score.

Lila Hurwitz is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner who has been teaching since 1987, including one of Seattle's longest-running weekly Feldenkrais classes since 1995. She likes to think she introduced Portland, OR, to Authentic Movement; learned from and has performed the Tuning Score with Karen Nelson and originator Lisa Nelson; and learned Contemplative Dance Practice from creator Barbara Dilley in 1987. She's performed with Ann Carlson, Nina Martin, Bebe Miller, Lucia Neare, Karen Nelson, Lisa Nelson, Mary Oslund, Stephanie Skura, Crispin Spaeth and many others.

SUNDAY, MAY 9 | 2-5pm
Super-size jam to benefit DAG!